Photo and Commentary ©2022 by Russell Jurgensen
Thursday, September 29, 2022
I don’t recall seeing prickly pear cactus before, and I thought this display looked nice. After reading about prickly pear, I understand that both the leaves and the pear fruit are edible after removing the spines. It is one of the most common edible varieties of cactus along with dragon fruit which also grows on a cactus.
The spines made me think about difficulties in life. I think we can agree that life today is more complex than life was perhaps thirty years ago. With greater complexity there are more ways we can have difficulties. On the other hand, we have more opportunities now than in the past. There are more ways to travel, more varieties of food, more entertainment options, more ways to communicate, etc.
In all of our complexity and difficulties we can still look for ways to follow God and help each other. We can take a lesson from the prickly pear cactus, which lives in difficult circumstances. It may put up a few defenses with its thorns to make its life simpler, but it also provides a lot of good with its fruit.